


Make It Bloom

by HeeCawRoo



Series: You Showed Me Dreams [1]
Category: Inception (2010), Naruto
Genre: Angst, Dreamsharing, F/F, Forging (Inception), Inception AU, Modern AU, Panic Attacks, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-10 06:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13496856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeeCawRoo/pseuds/HeeCawRoo
Summary: Ino gets an idea. Sakura gets a taste of a world she refuses to put back.





	Make It Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> alright! so. i honestly cannot tell you for the life of me how "inosaku inception AU" popped into my head. sometimes these things just happen. inosaku has been one of the most important ships to me for over a decade but ive never written a word. tried a couple times, but it just never happened.
> 
> guess ive fixed that! feels kind of like a milestone.
> 
> anyway. this is the first fic of what is planned to be a very long series, with a few super long stories spaced out between shorter ones like this. the other girls will feature heavily. sakura and ino's backstory will likely come out in more detail at some point too, but not for a while.
> 
> the universe is just the one from inception; i.e. our modern universe, but with dream sharing technology. if you havent seen inception ill... *try* to explain everything properly in the story so it stands alone? but i dont know how good i am at that.
> 
> exception to the "our normal universe" rule: konoha and suna exist as countries, probably somewhere in asia. others might too. idk. uhh dont ask what language they speak or ill self destruct. worldbuilding is not my strong suit

Sakura takes a deep breath as she stands outside a familiar house, hand hovering over the doorbell. It’s been years since the last time she visited Ino. Years since she’d seen her at all in fact, or anyone else from the town where they grew up.

She hesitates. She _needs_ to do this, now or never. She rings the doorbell.

The door flies open seconds later, too quickly to hide the fact that Ino had been waiting behind the door for her.

“Sakura!” Ino shouts, running out and throwing her arms around her. “It’s been so long! Oh wow, look at you!”

Sakura forces a smile. “Hey Ino. How’ve you been?”

“Great, great, I’ve been great.” Ino says, tugging her towards the door. “Come in! I’m so glad to see you again. You could have called a little earlier, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Sakura says. She laughs nervously. “I sort of fell out of contact with a lot of people, honestly…”

 _Fell out of contact,_ a little voice in the back of her head mocks. _You say it like it was passive. Like you didn’t ruin everything, like you always--_

Ino grabs her by the wrist and pulls her inside before she can spend another moment second guessing herself.

“Come on,” Ino calls back over her shoulder as she drags Sakura up the stairs to her room. “It’s been _ages_ since you’ve come over, you’ve got to tell me everything that’s been going on.”

“Not much really _has_ gone on,” Sakura says, fighting back a tremor in her voice. She raises her chin up and tries to look more sure of herself. She’s spent years and years trying to grow up, trying to become someone who could stand on the same level as Ino. She can’t let herself look weak now, when she’s finally starting to turn things around.

Judging from the exasperated sigh Ino lets out, she sees right through it. She usually does.

“Sakura,” she whines, drawing the name out like a song as she pushes Sakura into her room and onto the bed. “It’s been three years. I haven’t seen you since we were _sixteen_. You can’t possibly tell me nothing’s happened since then.”

She settles down onto the bed beside her, leaning towards her eagerly. “So? Spill. What’ve you been doing, anyway?”

Sakura breathes in slowly, already growing overwhelmed. She has no idea how Ino is doing this; acting like-- like the last time they spoke never--

“Ah, well,” she starts, stumbling over her words a bit. “Things are mostly the same as ever, really. Only we’re both out of high school now, obviously, so I’ve… been thinking about what to do next, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ino nods along with her words. “It’s tough, right? You could probably do anything you wanted, with your grades. It’s a lot to narrow down, isn’t it? It all feels like it’s happening so fast sometimes.”

Sakura nods mutely, happy to let Ino pick up where she left off. God, what is she doing? Talking to Ino used to be the easiest thing in the world. Now, it’s all she can do to get a few words out.

“I may not have as many options as you, Ms top of the class,” Ino continues. Sakura flinches at her casual tone. “But I’m not too worried about it. I’m thinking of joining the military. Following in my dad’s footsteps, you know? Don’t tell him that though, he’ll throw a fit.”

“Oh,” she says, blankly.

Sakura knew Ino was from a military family, like her. It was one of the first things they’d really bonded over, back when they were just a couple of eager elementary students trying to find any way to hold on to someone who showed interest in them.

She had no idea Ino had any interest in joining the military herself, however. It had always seemed like one of those things that made sense for their parents, but not themselves. Sakura had never considered it, not even for a second.

Though she supposes she has a lot more negative associations with the military than Ino did.

She isn’t really sure how to respond, so she does what comes best to her; neatly steps around it. “Your dad, then, is he still…”

“He’s still serving, yeah.” Ino says, picking up as Sakura trailed off. “He probably will for a while. He’s not an active combatant, you know, so there’s not as much danger. And he’s not _that_ old, you know.”

Ino laughs, a fresh burst of noise that catches in Sakura’s ears and sends an unexpected shiver down her spine. “I know we always think of our parents as, like, practically senile,” Ino carries on. “But when you really think about it, they’re not that much further along than we are. It seems like so much more when you’re a kid though.”

“Yeah,” Sakura says. “I guess.”

She hesitates, then wonders why she’s hesitating. “My dad’s been retired for ages now, but he complains about it all the time. It’s obvious there’s no way he’d ever go back even if he could, but… you know. I feel like he regrets it sometimes.”

“Aah.” Ino says. “What about your mom?”

“Oh, you mean the _housewife_?” Sakura says, more bitterly than she intended. “If you ask her, she may as well have never been a soldier in the first place.” It shouldn’t be a sore spot. It really shouldn’t be. “I don’t know how she can be so eager to just discount such a big part of her life. I don’t even want anything to do with all that, but I wouldn’t just… just _lie_ about it.”

“Well, you know, at least you get them both all to yourself this way.” Ino says, grinning widely at her. “If it was between signing up and being with you, I know what I’d pick too.”

Sakura gulps.

“Um, Ino…” she says.

“Yeah?” Ino answers, moving closer to her on the bed. Sakura’s mind blanks for a second. She bites her lip.

“I, um…” she fidgets. There was something, wasn’t there? Something important. The reason she’d finally called again, after so long.

“I’m… thinking of going to medical school.” she blurts out in a rush.

It’s not at all what she’d meant to say.

“Oh,” Ino says, sitting up a little straighter and moving out of Sakura’s space. Sakura lets out the breath she’d been holding. “Oh! That’s…”

Ino’s quiet for a moment, but then she smiles widely. “That’s great, Sakura! You’d make a great doctor. I’m just surprised, you know? You’ve never said anything about being interested in that.”

“Well, it’s sort of recent.” she says. “I only started thinking about it after… well, after.”

After I stopped speaking to you, she doesn’t say.

Ino doesn’t respond.

She makes a face, after a minute, and jumps off the bed. “Hey, hey, Sakura!” she says brightly. “I want to show you something. Stay here for a second, would you?”

Ino runs out of the room. Sakura sighs and falls back onto the bed, feeling like an idiot.

She was supposed to apologize. She was supposed to be making things better. That was the whole point of this trip. Making up for what she did, what she said. Fixing what she broke when she left.

Why couldn’t she just say that? Why did she need to make everything worse?

Sakura turns onto her side, pressing her face against the blankets, and breathes in. It’s been three years, and Ino’s room still has the same flowery scent. Everything looks the same; the same soft lavender decoration, bookshelf stacked with tiny trinkets and untidy piles of romance novels, walls covered with a seamless mix of delicate artwork and huge obnoxious posters of whatever heartthrob she’s into this month.

Ino hasn’t changed at all. She’s still right here, waiting, ready for everything to go back to the way it’s supposed to be.

Sakura’s the one who’s different. Who can’t go back.

Ino returns after a few minutes, holding a big metal briefcase in her arms. Sakura sits up.

“What’s that?” she says, eyeing it warily. When Ino said she had ‘something to show her’ it was usually some obscure pop culture tidbit or bizarrely beautiful poisonous plant. Once, it had been both. She wonders briefly what kind of deadly flora could grow in a metal box, before Ino opens it to reveal a strange looking machine built into the solid casing.

“So, you know what my dad actually does, right?” she says, setting two glass vials down on her nightstand.

“Um, sort of.” Sakura answers. Was that… a bomb? No, that was stupid. She looks closer at it, trying to figure it out. In the center is a big white button surrounded with what looks like space to put the vials, and hooked up to those… IVs? What the hell? “He’s some kind of intelligence operative, right? Codebreaking and stuff?”

“Close.” Ino inserts the vials into the machine and starts fiddling with the buttons, mouth curling towards one side while she adjusted what looked like… a dosage? “He’s… well, it’d be easier just to show you.”

“Show me what?” Sakura asks. Her mouth is dry. There’s a pit in her stomach. She’s beginning to suspect she was wrong about how much her best friend has or hasn’t changed.

Ino grins up at her, brilliantly as ever. “You trust me, right Sakura?”

* * *

_  
Ino sits down next to her on the bench. Sakura breathes out, slow._

_The wind blows through the trees, shaking and shuddering the leaves like wind chimes, scattering little flower petals along the breeze. It’s been three years to the day since the last time she and Ino spoke. It had been an unmitigated disaster. She’d been in a terrible place. The stress of losing Sasuke, being forced to leave town because just the sight of the place they’d grown up together made her unable to function, knowing she was leaving behind the only person who’d ever been able to make it better--_

_She hadn’t known how to deal with it. So she’d just pushed it all away, towards the only outlet she had. The things she said that day had been terrible, and she’d regretted them from the start. They’d walked away from each other understanding that this was the end, there was no way to recover._

_But three years is a long time._  
  
“You know, Sakura, when you said you wanted to meet up again I figured you’d pick somewhere a little less dramatic.” Ino says, giggling at her. Her tone is easy but there’s something guarded in her eyes, like she’s not entirely sure where this is headed. Sakura forces a smile.

“I just thought it seemed appropriate, you know?” she says. “We’ve spent a lot of time here.”  
__  
The empty little meadow with its sole abandoned park bench, chipped paint, covered in fallen leaves, had been a favorite spot for them as kids. Sakura liked how quiet it was, Ino liked how much there was to explore. Like uncovering hidden treasures, left behind by the people who didn’t want them anymore.  
_  
The meadow had been given a new meaning when they were twelve and Sakura had chosen this spot to make her intentions clear. It hadn’t really been about Sasuke, their rivalry. He was just an excuse. This was always building between them. Tension bubbling up and spilling over and out in the form of little barbs and secret looks when no one was watching._

 _Giving it a name had made it easier. Even if it was probably the wrong name._  
  
Ino looks uncomfortable. She blinks it away, scrunching up her face for a moment, and grins easy at Sakura.

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s fine, just not what I was expecting!” she says. She shifts closer to Sakura on the bench. “So, Sakura, what was it you wanted to tell me?”

“Ah, that’s…”  
_  
Three years starting over again when she was supposed to be done with that, three years alone, trying desperately to become the person she wished she was, the person Ino had always made her feel like she could be someday. Three years playing their last conversation over in her head and thinking the same thing every time._

 _I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry._  
  
Ino looks away.

“Ino, the last time we spoke…” Sakura trails off. Ino’s eyes are fixed firmly on the ground, her mouth tight in a thin line across her face. She looks guilty. Which is ridiculous, because--  
_  
Three years to the day, and she’d been doing so well, hadn’t thought about what happened in ages, and then she’d seen that date on the calendar and known it was time. So she called Ino up, and then she--_

 _Then she--_  
  
Wait.

“Hang on,” Sakura says. Ino whips her head back up to stare at her, eyes wide.

“What?” she says, smoothing her expression back down. “Is something wrong? You were about to say something, weren’t you?”

“Weren’t we…”

 _She needed to see Ino again, needed to apologize._ But she had, hadn’t she?

She made that call days ago.

“Ino, what’s going on?”

Ino sighs, eyes glimmering with mischief as she looks at Sakura. “Aah, it was going so well, too.” she says. “I almost got it out of you. Did you remember?”

“Remember what?”

_Ino unlatching a metal box and pulling out an IV and wiping Sakura’s wrist with a cotton swab. “I borrowed it from my dad,” she says, explaining nothing. “I doubt he’ll notice it’s gone.” The breeze picks up through the trees._

“That we’re dreaming, dummy.”

The wind abruptly stops.

“Wh… what?” Sakura asks. She must have heard that wrong.

“Dreaming, you know, asleep?” Ino repeats. Nope, heard it right the first time. “Well, _you’re_ dreaming, at least. I’m just along for the ride.”

“Um, so… you’re not really here? This is all in my head?”

Ino frowns. “Sort of? It is in your head, but I’m still real. Haven’t you ever heard of dream sharing?”

The air is eerily quiet, the leaves on the trees completely still. Sakura shivers.

She laughs, nervous. “I mean, as some dumb story, sure. You can’t expect me to actually believe that…”

Ino stands up and idles in front of her, arms crossed over her chest. “Yes, actually, I can. I thought you were starting to remember.”

“I remember… something. You messing with some machine. You said it was, um… a…”

“A PASIV.”

“Yes, that was it. It was something your dad uses, right?”

“Yeah,” Ino rolls her eyes. “For military extractions and shared dreaming. Keep up.”

“I don’t…” Sakura plays it back through her head. Ino rattling off some vague exposition, while turning dials and inserting a long IV line into both their wrists. The ground starts shaking under her feet. “Did you… drug me?”

Ino grins. “Just a little.”

Sakura gapes at her.

Looking around her surroundings with rising anxiety she gets to her feet, shakily trying to maintain her balance in the middle of what seems to be an earthquake growing in magnitude. She stumbles.

“Um, I don’t know why it’s doing that.” Ino says, frowning at the ground.

“So this… none of this is real?” Sakura asks, growing frantic.

“You got it!” Ino says, looking back up at her to smile widely. “It’s all just a dream.”

The ground cracks in half.

Ino is knocked off her feet as a chasm opens up between them, earth still shaking violently. Sakura drops to her knees.

“Wh-- Sakura!” Ino shouts, sitting up and staring across the widening gap at her. “Are you doing that?” She starts to get to her feet, but the patch of grass she’s sitting on suddenly rises ten feet into the air. She screams.

Sakura’s breathing is rapid and out of control as she stares down at the dirt between her knees. Around her, pillars of grass and dirt shoot up into the sky. “What…”

She can’t focus. She can’t _think_. The world is in chaos around her and she doesn’t know what’s going on and she can’t get herself under control. Her heart is racing a million times a minute, and among all the debris all she can think is _Ino wasn’t supposed to see her like this._

The little patch of meadow with the chipped park bench starts to sink slowly into the ground.

 _Oh, of_ course _you’re doing this now,_ the voice in her head sneers. _This isn’t even real and you still can’t do anything but freak out. You’re pathetic._

“Sakura!” Ino shouts, leaning over the edge to stare down at her. “You have to stop whatever it is you’re doing, okay? There’s still time on the clock and I don’t know what happens if we--”

“I’m not doing anything,” Sakura mumbles, vision blurring as her eyes fill up with tears. “I’m…”

“You’re the dreamer; you’re the one in control of this world. It’s all you! I don’t know what’s going on, but you can stop it.”

“I can’t… I don’t…”

“This is all _your_ head, Sakura! If you--” Ino squeals as she’s interrupted by a spike of rock jutting up out of the ground beside her.

_Yeah, Sakura. It’s all your head. Guess you’re just that messed up, huh?_

“Damnit!” Ino dodges as the rock falls apart and throws herself back towards the ledge, clutching the edge as she leans down to call to Sakura. “Sakura! You have to just-- breathe, okay, can you do that? Can you… that’s supposed help, right? Deep breaths, okay?”

_What, does she think you’re stupid or something? Guess it was a good idea not to let her see this side of you after all. God knows what she thinks of you now._

Sakura clenches her fists against the ground. Her heart is pounding. Her breathing is erratic. She _knows_ that, knows she’s having a panic attack. It doesn’t exactly _help._

“I don’t th-- That’s--” Ino cuts herself off and takes in a sharp breath. “Look, Sakura! I don’t know how to help, okay? I’d come down there, but it’s way too high up, and I--” her voice breaks, and she takes a second to speak again. “I don’t know what to do. But you do, right? You have to. You know _everything_. And you’re gonna be fine. So just… you know. Breathe.”

Sakura focuses on making her next breath slow and deliberate. She holds it in her lungs and counts to five before slowly exhaling.

The ground she’s on finally stops sinking.

“Yes! Just like that! Keep doing that, Sakura.”

The breeze picks up again as Sakura continues breathing slow and steady. She starts to relax, letting her mind key in on the simple routine and forget to be afraid. Some of the pillars of earth slide back into the ground; no new ones rise.

The world eventually stops shaking. Sakura breathes.

“Oh thank god,” Ino sighs, dropping back onto the grass behind her with a plop. “You did it.”

Sakura is still.

_You did it, alright. Huh. Is that a joke?_

Ino pushes herself up to a sitting position, leaning on her arms. She looks down at Sakura.

_I mean, you basically needed to be rescued. Again. Can’t you do anything on your own? You’re not eight anymore, Sakura. You still need Ino cleaning up after all your messes, after all this time?_

“Sakura…” Ino says. Her voice is soft and quiet. “You know that’s not true, right?”

Sakura pushes herself to her feet and brushes the dirt off her knees. She doesn’t meet Ino’s eyes. “I think I’ve got it under control now,” she says. “Sorry about that.”

“Um.. yeah. Okay.” Ino is strangely subdued as she stares down at Sakura. She looks at the gap between her pillar and where Sakura stands, and makes a face. “No idea how I’m gonna get down from here, though.”

Sakura tilts her head, studying the gap. “You said I can control the dream, right?”

“Yup! Generally speaking, there’s one dreamer--that’s you--and a subject, who--”

Sakura frowns. “Hold on. Let me try something.”

She stares up at Ino’s ledge, picturing coiled wood and sturdy steps. A pair of thick tree roots burst out of the grass in front of her. Long and twisted, they weave together in the air. Before her eyes a curling staircase forms, connecting her to Ino.

Ino leans back. “Wow. Okay, that worked.”

The two of them carefully climb the stairs, emerging onto flat ground. Sakura absently calls up more roots to fill in the huge crack in the earth, folding over each other to form a fine layer covering the gaps. She looks around, and is shocked by what she finds.

“The trees, they…”

Every tree surrounding the meadow is completely bare, their leaves in piles beneath them. Ino glances around at them. “Oh, the leaves? That happened earlier. You were, um. A little distracted.”

She brightens. “But hey!” she says, stepping carefully across the roots in front of her. “You can fix that, right?” she stops at the base of a tall tree, and gestures up at it. “Just like before. Come on, I want to see what you can do!”

Sakura looks up at the tree, then back down at her. Ino is giddy with excitement, practically jumping up and down. “Come oooon, Sakura! You’re already building stuff, why not?”

Sakura smiles. A pink flower petal falls out of the air and lands softly on Ino’s head. Ino frowns, then looks up.

Tiny pink flower buds pepper the tree. As she watches more emerge, pushing slowly out of the bends in the branches and carefully unfurling into beautiful cherry blossoms.

Sakura watches Ino’s face as she encourages the tree to grow. Ino is transfixed, staring up at the flowers mesmerized as they flourish. A gentle breeze picks up, carrying petals along, surrounding the two of them with color.

“Wow…” Ino says, spellbound. She finally looks back at Sakura, and smiles gently. The look in her eyes is infinitely fond. “You really did make it bloom.” she says. “I knew you would.”

Sakura’s breath catches in her throat.

_Ino sitting beside her on the grass, carefully plucking flowers with tiny hands. Smiling over at her, calling her a bud. “But, who knows,” she’d said. “There’s no point to a flower unless it blooms.”_

Sakura smiles at her. Ino laughs, suddenly nervous.

“You know, you’ve got to get that under control, Sakura.” she says. “All your memories on display like that. If I was a real extractor I wouldn’t even need to do anything to steal your secrets.”

“Hang on, what?” Sakura frowns at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re kind of broadcasting. Just now, with the flower picking, and earlier too.”

“Wait.” Sakura racks her brain, playing back their conversations in the dream so far. “Wait, hold on a second. Can you-- _hear what I’m thinking!?_ ”

“If you call that _thinking_ ,” Ino giggles. “Like I said, you’re kind of putting it out there.”

“Oh my god.” Sakura buries her face in her hands. Ino laughs.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “You’ll get better at it. And it wasn’t anything too embarrassing.”

“Wake me up, I’ve had enough of this.” she mumbles.

“Not yet you haven’t!” Ino turns, walking under the tree and into the woods. “Come on, we can’t wake up until the clock runs out anyway.”

Sakura takes a deep breath. Peeking through her fingers she watches as Ino wanders away from her, following a rough stone path through the trees. She stops and turns to Sakura.

“Well? Are you coming?”

Sakura lowers her hands. Breathes out. Follows Ino into the woods.

* * *

_  
“What’s your name, then?”_

_Sakura mumbles into her knees._

_“What? I can’t hear you. Come on, speak up.”_  
  
Ino stops walking and turns to her. “You’re doing it again,” she says. Sakura snaps out of her reverie.

“Ah, sorry.” she says. “It’s just… you know. All these places.”

They’ve been walking for about twenty minutes now, and it seems the further they go into the dream the more places from their past they uncover. Like now, as they walk past the little paved playground where they’d first spoken, the week Sakura moved to town.

Being the new kid hadn’t exactly been new to her, having moved to different bases with her parents constantly throughout her childhood, but this was different. She’d never had trouble connecting with the other army kids, but the kids at her new school were completely uncharted territory for her. She couldn’t even bring herself to speak to most of them, and none of them had bothered to reach out first.

Except Ino.

“Yeah, I know.” Ino shrugs. “Well, it’s your dream, you know. You could take us anywhere you wanted.”

“Yeah.” Sakura hesitates, biting her lip. “I don’t know, I think this is fine. I kind of like it. It’s been ages since I’ve been here.”

“We could go here in real life, you know.” Ino says, looking at her carefully. “It doesn’t have to be just in the dream. We could… you know. Just hang out again.”

“Well,” Sakura looks around. “Yeah, we could. But in real life, I couldn’t do this.”

Sakura turns towards the playground behind them and raises both her arms. The buildings surrounding it shrink down, sloping towards it like big stone stairs leading down to a monument.

“What are you doing?” Ino says, watching the buildings change, fascinated. “What are you gonna build?”

“Quiet,” she scolds. “You’ll see in a minute.”

She raises the playground up on a platform, shrinking away the surrounding foliage until the entire area is stone and concrete. The edges rise up, forming parapets around the playground equipment.

Sakura frowns, thinking about what to do next. Glancing over at Ino, whose eyes are still riveted to the stonework, she makes up her mind.

The metal of the playground equipment ripples, melting down and then leaning into the center. Thick bars that made up the slides and monkey bars twist together rising up towards the sky, reaching up like a tree pushing itself out of the ground. Metal branches shoot out, growing and building itself into an intricate sculpture of a tree in bloom.

“Come on,” she says, starting to climb up towards it. A swing unfolds from one of the branches, dropping down to sway gently, waiting for her. Ino follows, dazed.

“Sakura, this is… _beautiful_.” Ino breathes out, following along behind her as she pulls herself up onto the swing. Another drops down on the other side of the tree. “Wow. We have got to do this more often.”

They sit together for a while, swinging slowly in silence. They look down at the town below them, people wandering through the streets without purpose. A few of them look up curiously at Sakura. She doesn’t recognize them.

“Who are they all?” she asks, gesturing down to them. “They’re not real, right?”

“I think they’re called projections. Something like that. They’re my subconscious.”

“Yours?”

“Yeah. Since you’re the dreamer and I’m the subject. My mind fills in the gaps in your world, things like people and little details you couldn’t know about.” Ino waves a hand absently. “That’s how dad does his work. The subject’s mind populates it with their secrets, and he hunts them out. That’s what extraction is.”

“Huh.”

Sakura watches the crowds quietly for a moment. “Do you know them?” she asks.

“Maybe.” Ino says. “If I looked closer, I might recognize someone. It happens automatically, I don’t really have control.”

Sakura looks over at her. “So you can’t control anything, then? I can build all of this, and you just… I don’t know, watch?”

Ino hesitates. “Well…”

“What?”

“I mean, there might be something I can do. It is a dream, there’s some things you can do no matter what your role is. But I… haven’t really practiced a lot.”

“Well, show me anyway. We’re here now, right? Why not practice now?”

Ino twirls a lock of hair around her finger, thinking. “Well… okay. Sure, why not?”

She hops down from the swing. Sakura follows, curious. Ino stands hesitantly near the base of the tree.

“Okay, just stand there for a second. Don’t look!” she says, and disappears behind the trunk. Sakura waits.

A few seconds pass. Sakura fidgets, shifting her balance on her feet.

“Okay!” Ino calls out. Sakura straightens up, paying attention.

The person who steps out from behind the tree, however, is not Ino.

Sakura stares, eyes wide, taking in the girl’s appearance. She’s small, coming up to Sakura’s waist, and looks about eight years old. Her messy pink hair is pulled hastily back by a bright red ribbon and she peers out under it at Sakura. She blushes and fidgets, pulling nervously at the hem of her red dress.

It’s her. She remembers that stupid dress, picking it out in the morning and studying herself in the mirror, wanting to look perfect so the nice blonde girl she’d met yesterday will want to keep talking to her. The ribbon Ino had given her later that day. It had been a perfect match. Sakura gapes.

“Um…” the little girl says, in her quiet squeaky voice. “W-well, what do you think? Does it look good?”

“I…” Sakura stares, mind hardly making the connection. “Ino? That’s… you?”

The girl smiles, a wide grin that doesn’t look right on her face. Sakura blinks, and in a second Ino is standing in front of her again.

“Well?” It’s impressive, right?” she says, standing back and waiting for praise.

“It’s…” Sakura shakes her head, blinking away her shock. “It was… pretty good, yeah.”

“I knew it!”

“Though, you made my forehead way too big. It wasn’t _that_ ridiculous.”

Ino pouts. “Geez, it’s been a while, okay? That’s how I remember you, anyway. It would fool anyone who wasn’t looking.”

Sakura falls into that thought for a moment. How Ino remembers her.

“Is that what it’s for, then? Fooling people?” she asks, refusing to dwell on it.

“I guess so,” Ino frowns. “I just figured it out by chance. I don’t think a lot of people do stuff like that? My dad’s never mentioned it, anyway. I think I’m getting pretty good, though.”

“He hasn’t…” Sakura looks at Ino, slowly coming to a realization. “He didn’t show you that. Does he… know you’re doing all this? Dreaming like this?”

Ino laughs, and looks away. “Um… maybe not?” she says. “Well, he brought me in once to show me what it was like, but since then I’ve been, um. Doing my own research.”

Sakura hesitates.

It probably wasn’t a good idea, doing this unsupervised. Ino had basically admitted she’d stolen the PASIV. Even if she put it back before it was found missing, even if her dad didn’t find out… Was that okay?

But if he’d brought Ino in himself it couldn’t be dangerous or anything, right?

“Okay.” she says slowly. “Well, that’s fine. And, well, the disguise was good. Is there anything else you can do with it?”

Ino grins.

And that’s how Sakura, ten minutes later, finds herself hunting through a crowded street.

She weaves through the mass of people, studying their faces in passing. Somewhere within this crowd is Ino, wearing the body of a bystander. Sakura pauses, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

Across the street she finally spots her -- a tall woman wearing a skirt and suit jacket and clutching a briefcase. Sakura watches her. The woman glances nervously at a shiny silver watch, then winces and picks up her pace.

She stumbles a little, barely noticeable, as though she’s not used to wearing heels that high.

Sakura smiles.

Looking around, making a show of still not knowing, she crosses the street. She wanders up behind the woman, staring into the faces of everyone she passes with what looks like total concentration.

Suddenly, she pounces. The woman shouts as she falls to the sidewalk, twisting around as Sakura lands above her, arms braced on either side of the woman’s head.

Ino blinks up at her in bewilderment, cheeks pink.

“Got you,” Sakura teases.

“That’s not fair.” Ino groans. “How did you even figure it out? I thought that one was perfect.”

“Oh, it was.” Sakura says. “If this were the real world. A little too much detail for a projection though, don’t you think?”

Ino pouts. “Someone who didn’t know they were dreaming wouldn’t know the difference.”

“No, probably not. But they might notice if you stood out from the crowd too much. It takes different skills to blend in than to trick someone up close.”

She stands up, and holds out her hand to help Ino out. “Come on, let’s try again.”

Ino takes her hand with uncharacteristic hesitation, a secret smile on her face. “Alright. You won’t catch me next time, got it?”

Sakura smirks, ready with a counterremark, then stops suddenly. “Do you hear that?” she asks.

“Hear what?” Ino asks, but then freezes.

Gentle music floats through the air, something orchestral and regal sounding.

“Where is that coming from?” Sakura asks, looking around. She doesn’t see an obvious source. “It sounds close.”

“That’s not part of the dream.” Ino says. She looks worried. “I don’t understand, there should still be plenty of time left. I set it to keep us under for fifteen minutes -- that’s three hours.”

“Fifteen…” Sakura trails off, confused. “Wait, did you just say _three hours!?_ ”

Ino looks apologetic. “Yeah. Time’s slower in here. I just figured, you know, we might need a little time. I wasn’t sure how this was gonna go.”

“But, that’s…”

Ino looks at her seriously. “Listen, Sakura, whatever happens, I just want you to know I would _never_ do anything that would put you--”

Ino vanishes.

Sakura looks around, searching for her, but a moment later there’s no need.

* * *

Sakura wakes slowly, mind foggy at first. She has to think for a second to remember where she is, what happened. She sits up.

Ino’s father is packing up the PASIV, moving slowly with obvious restrained fury. Ino is sitting on the bed besides Sakura, staring down at the floor, guilt written all over her face.

Ino’s father sighs, picking up the machine and tucking it under one arm, then turns to face the two of them.

“Do you have any idea how reckless that was?” he says, expression stern. Ino shrugs.

“I didn’t think you were home.” she says.

“I came back to get something I forgot. _Apparently_ , I need to keep my belongings under lock and key. That’s not the point, Ino, and you know it.”

She looks up at him, eyes bright. “It’s not like it’s _dangerous_.”

“Of course it’s dangerous! You’re going into each other’s minds unsupervised. You don’t know what you’re doing. The dream could have collapsed, you could have been hurt, you could’ve been attacked by projections--”

Ino suddenly looks horrified. Sakura straightens up.

“Nothing happened, though.” she said. “We were both fine.”

“You were lucky. That doesn’t change the fact that it could have happened.”

Ino finds her voice again. “And so what? It’s just a dream, Dad, what does it matter?”

He sighs. “Just because it’s a dream, Ino, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

Ino is quiet.

Her father looks at the two of them, then down at the PASIV in his arms. “Danger to yourselves aside, there’s the fact that you went into my office and stole government property. Do you know how much trouble I could get into for this if anyone finds out? Do you know how much trouble _you_ could get into? You’re not a child anymore, Ino.”

“I just wanted to show Sakura the dream. You showed me, were you supposed to do that?”

“No, I wasn’t. And it seems it was even more of a mistake than I’d realized.”

She glares. “It _wasn’t_ a mistake. It was _amazing_. It was incredible.” she raises her chin and stares at him, defiant. “I’d do it again. I _will_ do it again. And Sakura will too. Right? It’s not like I’m alone.”

“I can’t let you do that, you know I can’t. I’m not even going to be able to leave this at home anymore.”

“We’ll find another one.”

Ino’s father stares at the two girls, both looking up at him resolutely. He sighs again.

“I can’t believe I’m even considering this, but…”

Ino perks up.

“If I can’t stop you anyway, I can at least make sure you’re doing this _right_.” he continues. “You’ll need a totem. Do you even know what that is?”

“Nope.” Ino says brightly, grinning like the rest of the argument never happened. “What’s a totem?”

Ino’s father looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world than having this conversation. He pulls something out of his pocket and holds it out for them to see. Ino reaches out for it, and he snatches his hand back.

“Don’t touch it,” he scolds. “This is a totem. It’s your link to reality. It needs to be something completely unique, that only you know the details of. That way when you’re in someone else’s dream, you’ll be able to take one look at it and know whether you’re in a dream or reality.”

He holds it up to the light. It’s a wooden Shogi piece, small and light. One one side the bishop character is painted in glossy black paint. On the other, a picture of a boar, drawn on messy in red ink. Ino peers at it suspiciously.

“Why something like that?” she asks.

“It doesn’t matter why.” Ino’s dad says. Sakura thinks for a second he’s blushing, but she’s sure it’s just a trick of the light. He continues. “Yours should be something different, something that’s personal to you.”

Ino appears to be in deep thought. “Okay.” she says. “A totem. I’ll think of one.”

“Good. You too, Sakura,” he says, addressing her.

Sakura doesn’t have the first idea what she could use, but she nods.

Ino’s dad studies the two of them.

“You’re really serious about this,” he says. “You really want to do this.”

Ino nods furiously, and Sakura does her best to look confident. She doesn’t know how this is gonna go, but she knows one thing with absolute surety.

She has to dream like that again.

“Fine, alright.” he says. “But you need to understand something. Dream sharing technology is not something anyone can just pick up off the street and use. In all likeliness if you go through with this, it won't be through official channels.”

He hesitates, staring at the wall. “I don’t want to know about it. I don’t want to hear where you’re going, or what you’re dreaming about, or that you’re dreaming. It breaks every instinct I have as a father to say this, but as a soldier and as someone whose job has me sharing my head with other people on a daily basis, that’s information I just can’t have. Please just try to be safe about this, alright?”

He’s quiet for a minute, then gathers himself and turns back to them. “There’s a few more things you should know about. For starters -- and I know this probably hasn’t come up before, but it will at some point -- pain you feel in your dreams, all of that; it’ll feel real. You need to be prepared, and don’t rush into dangerous situations just because you think there won’t be consequences. There are _always_ consequences.”

He lectures them for a few more minutes, running through basic safety precautions, how to avoid agitating projections, what happens if the dreamer dies, how to wake up early, and anything else he can think of. Finally, he has only one more piece of advice.

“And one more thing. Whenever you can avoid it, don’t build dreams out of memories.”

Sakura fidgets, meeting Ino’s eyes, unsure if she should say anything. Ino shakes her head slightly, barely perceptible.

He continues, explaining. “It can be tempting to fall back on something you’re familiar with, and it’s easy to build from what you know. But while details from reality, locations you’re familiar with, can be easy to build, if you invest too much of yourself in a dream you risk forgetting where you are. A totem is useless if you’re not lucid enough to use it.”

He looks at them seriously. “If you stop dreaming naturally, take a break. Get it out of your system.”

Ino nods. “Okay. I’m pretty sure I’ve got all of that. Thanks, Dad.”

“Alright. Then I guess I’ll leave you two to keep catching up.” he says. “I have to get back to work anyway.” He hesitates, breathes in slowly. “Promise me you’ll be careful, girls?”

“Of course!” Ino grins brightly. “We’re not gonna do anything stupid. Don’t worry about it, Dad.”

He nods and leaves the room, PASIV under his arm. The door shuts softly.

Ino and Sakura turn to look at each other. Neither girl says a word. A slow, relieved grin grows across Ino’s face. A shiver runs down Sakura’s spine.

They’re really going to do this. They are _absolutely_ doing this.

This is only the beginning.


End file.
